Why is Facebook talking to record labels?
It might not be immediately obvious why Facebook is making calls to record labels this week (certainly not as obvious as why Apple is), and perhaps even less so when you factor in that it's about expanding video on the social network. But it's all part of a big plan.
Facebook users already watch 4 billion videos per day on their News Feeds. The company is in the midst of a push to make video even bigger, by improving the experience significantly and getting more people to post videos directly to Facebook. Now, in its effort to better compete with YouTube, it's tackling a legal issue that's hindering its progress: music rights.
YouTube shares ad revenue with music publishers to clear the way for videos that use copyrighted songs. Facebook doesn't yet have that kind of access and must take down videos with protected music.
"If you've been on Facebook any time over the last six months or 12 months you've noticed a lot more videos on there," said CNET's Dan Ackerman. "Facebook is actively pushing video but they don't have those music deals, so if you have some background music in your Facebook video, they might have to pull that down and they don't want to do that. They want to be as useful for video as YouTube is."
According to Tom Dotan at The Information, Facebook is now in talks with at least one music label to come to some sort of mutually favorable agreement.
"At least one deal is in the works," he wrote, "and Facebook needs that option if it wants to win over the YouTube community, which is a heavy user of copyrighted music."
Removing restrictions on music use will make a big difference in establishing Facebook as a go-to destination for video creators.